The Hook

It was a dark and stormy night…

In the novel The Plague by Albert Camus, a character named Grand works diligently every night for years on what he hopes will be a great novel. When he finally reveals his work to his friends, however, all he has come up with is the opening sentence: “One fine morning in the month of May an elegant young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.” Years of work had produced just this one sentence, yet Grand, still not satisfied, tinkers with it throughout the novel — never progressing beyond this first line.

Of course this is an excessive and absurd example, but it's true that the opening line of anything you write is important and deserves serious attention. Your first words ought to grab the reader by the collar and say, "You want to read this!" The first line is often referred to as the hook because if it’s done well, the reader is hopelessly snagged — compelled to keep reading.

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.[7]

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.[8]

Yawn. Somehow, these writers were able to pull off major successes despite these sleep-inducing openers. But remember that these are exceptions to the rule. We recommend investing the time into a catchy first sentence — one that catches the eye, sparks the imagination, or arouses curiosity. And this goes for anything you write, from creative fiction to comparative essays.